I thought the Simulcasts we pay for were supposed to air at the same time that the episode aired on television in Japan. If that's the case how do fansubs of shows keep showing up 2-4 days before the 'Simulcast' airs. A good example would be Ao No Exorcist, every episode has been pre-empted by its fansub by at least 2 days. This is more a question of curiosity than outrage or complaint.

Three titles from the Spring season were delayed by a few days - Ao no Exorcist, Hoshizora and Oretachi.
Five titles (or more) from the Summer season will be delayed - Sacred Seven, R-15, Dark Rabbit, Dantalian, and Twin Angel (?)

From this batch of titles here, I believe there are 3 main reasons:1) CR obtained rights for the title from a US Company (Ao no Exorcist, Sacred Seven) - I'm not exactly sure why, but this is an obvious trend.2) Various reasons relating to TV rights - I can't say for sure if the Hoshizora and Oretachi delays were related to this, however this has seen titles delayed in the past.3) Kadokawa giving niconico exclusive rights for 1 week (most of the Summer delays) - To attract consumers to the new simulcast site (Kadokawa has a strong relationship with the Japanese version of this site).

This is starting to become a rather big issue with simulcasts, and it's definitely something that I would like to see less of. Personally I go with whatever comes out first, so I don't care at all for these delayed 'simulcasts'.

I agree with the "whichever comes out first" for a few series; Ao No Exorcist, and Fairy Tail are good examples. But if the anime are going to continue to be pre-empted by fansubs and other sites...why am I paying crunchyroll the fees over these other sites other than brand loyalty? So far it largely doesn't effect the reasons I became a member. But is this a trend I can expect to become more prevalent? I hope not, because if the number becomes too unbalanced it will be hard to justify paying for it. But they're safe for now. There's still close to a dozen or so shows that come out here before anywhere else that I watch religiously each season.

I thought the Simulcasts we pay for were supposed to air at the same time that the episode aired on television in Japan. If that's the case how do fansubs of shows keep showing up 2-4 days before the 'Simulcast' airs. A good example would be Ao No Exorcist, every episode has been pre-empted by its fansub by at least 2 days. This is more a question of curiosity than outrage or complaint.

One item to keep in mind is that some of these "delayed" simulcasts (but definitely not the Kodakawa titles this season) likely are still being aired within an hour of when they air in Japan...just not on the primary network.

Unlike the United States, where each network covers the entire country, networks in Japan are more regional. As such, unlike the U.S. where a program is unique to one network, in Japan it is often resold to other networks for later broadcast. As such, Crunchyroll's contract can sometime require the simulcast be linked to one of these later airings, or in the worse case scenario, the latest airing.

Fansubbers, as usual, don't have to play by any rules.

A question for Crunchyroll:

As NicoNico only appears to be making the four Kadokawa titles available to those in the United States:

(1) Could Crunchyroll obtain permission from Kadokawa to stream these to areas other than the United States during that first week?

(2) If said permission could be obtained, does CR have the infrastructure to provide video to certain regions, while denying it to one for a one week period only, short of manually tweaking the region permissions each time?

I don't see any reason to "punish" others in North America, and those in South America, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Africa and the Middle East, just because NicoNico wants the titles exclusively for one week only in the United States.

I thought the Simulcasts we pay for were supposed to air at the same time that the episode aired on television in Japan. If that's the case how do fansubs of shows keep showing up 2-4 days before the 'Simulcast' airs. A good example would be Ao No Exorcist, every episode has been pre-empted by its fansub by at least 2 days. This is more a question of curiosity than outrage or complaint.

One item to keep in mind is that some of these "delayed" simulcasts (but definitely not the Kodakawa titles this season) likely are still being aired within an hour of when they air in Japan...just not on the primary network.

Unlike the United States, where each network covers the entire country, networks in Japan are more regional. As such, unlike the U.S. where a program is unique to one network, in Japan it is often resold to other networks for later broadcast. As such, Crunchyroll's contract can sometime require the simulcast be linked to one of these later airings, or in the worse case scenario, the latest airing.

Fansubbers, as usual, don't have to play by any rules.

A question for Crunchyroll:

As NicoNico only appears to be making the four Kadokawa titles available to those in the United States:

(1) Could Crunchyroll obtain permission from Kadokawa to stream these to areas other than the United States during that first week?

(2) If said permission could be obtained, does CR have the infrastructure to provide video to certain regions, while denying it to one, short of manually tweaking the region permissions?

I don't see any reason to "punish" others in North America, and those in South America, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Africa and the Middle East, just because NicoNico wants the titles exclusively for one week only in the United States.

I could answer the second question for you, which is yes. CR is worldwide and capable to provide streaming outside US (They did it during the Fall, Winter and Spring seasons) however I doubt that CR would do that as CR has ignored their own fans outside US.

Interesting. Since some of this seasons simulcasts are showing up on anime newcomer NicoNico I went ahead and gave it a try. I gotta admit, NicoNico has some cool features on their video player like a buffer indicator and stutter free streaming.

So, if some of the new season is playing on NicoNico first I'll go ahead and watch it over there instead. No point in waiting around another week or so just for it to show up on CR.

Endosanitywrote:
So, if some of the new season is playing on NicoNico first I'll go ahead and watch it over there instead. No point in waiting around another week or so just for it to show up on CR.

The biggest reason I could see for waiting on a series to appear at CR is that even with the high bit rates they started with (which they have since reduced), NicoNico's 360p video can't hold a candle to 720p on Crunchyroll. (Actually, it is more like 352p, since they pad a bit at the top and bottom). It also appears they are still on the early part of the learning curve on the video encoding process.

Aside from that, the only other reason I could see is their lack of a true full screen mode, but some people are not bothered by that.

It will be interesting to see if once they open up the premium option if higher resolution and true full screen follow as options. It appears the fee for premium membership will be a mere token amount during the beat (which is apparently scheduled to end in the Fall).